COVID-19 has changed everyone’s business plans and operations, almost overnight. World-wide, industry events, trade shows and exhibitions planned for 2019 have all been casualties of the virus. Social distancing, tightening of travel and border controls and restrictions on meetings have meant that WoodTECH 2020, originally scheduled for mid-late August 2020 had to be cancelled. Well, the conferences, workshops and exhibitions …
Microtec acquires Lucidyne
In a move that creates the largest wood products scanning company in the world, Microtec has acquired Lucidyne Technologies, Inc. Microtec has been delivering technologically advanced scanning and optimization systems for 40 years, and is a premier scanning company across Europe. Lucidyne has been the industry leader in scanning and optimization throughout North America since 1985. This acquisition expands both …
Major decline in Australian housing construction predicted
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) is calling on Australia’s leaders to urgently put in place a stimulus recovery package for the housing construction sector to counter the massive reduction in new house starts and therefore the timber products used in their construction. AFPA CEO Ross Hampton said, “Australia’s softwood timber processing industry supplies most of the renewable timber products …
Transparent wood film acclaimed at awards
Congratulations to Qilang Fu and team, whose transparent wood film was highly commended in the Wood and Fibre Products Technology and Innovation category in the 2020 Resene Timber Design Awards. The novel wood is ultra-strong, flexible and 80% transparent. The process is simple – a chemical treatment removes lignin/hemicellulose from thin layers of wood that are compressed and dried. The …
Tribute to industry pioneer Richard Neville-Smith
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has paid tribute to forest industries pioneer and leader Richard Neville-Smith. Mr Neville Smith, the former Chief Executive of “Neville Smith Forest Products” (NSFP) passed away last week in Melbourne aged 82 after a long illness, and his funeral was held on Thursday. The Neville Smith business was started in 1924 by Mr Neville …
A new process for preserving lumber
Pressure treating – which involves putting lumber inside a pressurized watertight tank and forcing chemicals into the boards – has been used for more than a century to help stave off the fungus that causes wood rot in wet environments. Now Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new method that could one day replace conventional pressure treating as a way …
JoeScan launches new sawmill scanning website
Sawmill scanning leader JoeScan has just released a complete overhaul to their website. The new site offers a more streamlined experience for visitors and lots of new content. The new website has been more than two years in the making and was developed in-house. “This upgrade is much more than an aesthetic face-lift,” says JoeScan president Joey Nelson. “We needed a …
Metsä to build world’s most modern sawmill
Metsä Group is to invest €200m and build the world’s most modern sawmill in Rauma. It will be Finland’s largest ever sawmill investment. Investing €200m in the Rauma project, Metsä’s newest sawmill will have a projected capacity of 750,000 m3 of sawn pine timber per year. The new sawmill will utilise machine vision and artificial intelligence in different stages of …